Terry Tempest Williams on Emmet Gowin's unflinching photos of the Nevada Test Site.

[warden]

The article is too short but worth a read. Williams also wrote the foreword to Gowin's exceptional Mariposas Nocturnas.

Witness to the Cold War in the desert - High Country News

Terry Tempest Williams on Emmet Gowin’s unflinching photos of the Nevada Test Site.

www.hcn.org

 

[jtk]

warden, thanks! It's too easy to overlook photographers who work with the immediately available subjects, not having to travel to exotic locations or "models." Not reducing "family" photos to mere snapshots.

Finding a Place: Emmet Gowin

Soon after coming to Princeton, in 1973, to teach photography, Emmet Gowin began to worry that he’d made a big mistake.

paw.princeton.edu

 

[jtk]

"Throughout his prolific career as a photographer, Emmet Gowin has threaded together seemingly disparate subjects: his wife, Edith, and their extended family; American and European landscapes; aerial views of environmental devastation, brought together by his ongoing interest in issues of scale, the impact of the individual, and notions of belonging." ...unidentified Amazon author

 

[jtk]

https://www.nga.gov/audio-video/audio/gowin-stieglitz.html

Have not listened but will soon... I hope others will contribute responses..

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

The article is too short but worth a read. Williams also wrote the foreword to Gowin's exceptional Mariposas Nocturnas.

Witness to the Cold War in the desert - High Country News

Terry Tempest Williams on Emmet Gowin’s unflinching photos of the Nevada Test Site.

www.hcn.org

The pictures are very stark and scary. I grew up during the Cold War during the 1950s. I remember hiding under our school desks during shelter drills to "protect" ourselves from explosions. There were many movies produced during the 1950's in particular as a metaphor against nukes such as the Japanese Godzilla, Rodan, etc and here in America, there were the movies like Them. These played up the effects of radiation. Two of the better more modern ones with a theme of nuclear war were War Games and Dr. Strangelove.

A nuclear war would sure mess up my plans for photography this weekend.

 

[warden]

"Throughout his prolific career as a photographer, Emmet Gowin has threaded together seemingly disparate subjects: his wife, Edith, and their extended family; American and European landscapes; aerial views of environmental devastation, brought together by his ongoing interest in issues of scale, the impact of the individual, and notions of belonging." ...unidentified Amazon author

Gowin has been one of my favorites for a long time. His photographic work can be relied on, much as Sally Mann's and Robert Adams's, and he's eloquent on paper or with a microphone.

Thanks for the National Gallery of Art link!

 

[Sirius Glass]

Thank you. His photographs show landscape that most of us did not know about and have never seen. An interesting insight.

 

[Eric Rose]

Radiation from the test bombs drifted up and across lower western Canada. There is a direct correlation between increased incidents of cancers and MS along the drift patterns.

 

[jtk]

The images shared here by Photrio are strangely beautiful.

 

[jtk]

I think it should be mentioned that Mrs. Gowin grew from a beautiful young woman into an elegant old woman during the marriage.

I don't think it's quite fair to compare Gowin's work to that of Sally Mann or Robert Adams, whose work does for me raise questions about photographer's personal relationships with subjects. And of course, have we seen any other photographer's photos of photographer's partners in old age?

 

[jtk]

Here's Annie Lebowitz's recently deceased wife, who wasn't photographed much in old age.

 

[warden]

And of course, have we seen any other photographer's photos of photographer's partners in old age?

I guess we'd have to agree on what old age means, but one notable example would be Harry Callahan, who photographed his wife Eleanor for more than forty years. Callahan was one of Gowin's professors at RISD.

I imagine Andre Kertesz would qualify as well but I don't have my books available to check. Elizabeth was a favorite subject for him though throughout his career.

I agree Edith Gowin was/is a great and capable model.

 

[CMoore]

"Throughout his prolific career as a photographer, Emmet Gowin has threaded together seemingly disparate subjects: his wife, Edith, and their extended family; American and European landscapes; aerial views of environmental devastation, brought together by his ongoing interest in issues of scale, the impact of the individual, and notions of belonging." ...unidentified Amazon author

Do you know.....i am assuming this was all pre-drone tech... was he a pilot or did he simply rent a plane or helicopter for the aerial stuff.?
Thank You

I find aerial photos VERY Important and Interesting.
From Disneyland ascending to the "Rust-Belt" descending.
Nothing brings it home, on scale, like aerial photos

 

[VinceInMT]

Thanks for the link. It was a good read and the photos are starkly beautiful.

This topic is a personal one for me, being raised during that Cold War and, as a navy brat, always near the center of a potential nuclear blast. In fact, we never did the drills and hid under our desks because it was obvious that we were in the zone that would be largely vaporized.

Years later, in the early-1970s, I am in the US army and found myself stationed in Europe as a guard of a Nike-Herc missile site. Half of the rounds were nukes and I got up close and personal to them as part of my guard duties. I didn’t spend much time pondering their role in a conflict, instead, compartmentalizing that just like I did growing up near one ground zero after another. However, there was an anxiety that was established that I didn’t work through until a decade or so ago.

As a result of that, when I was considering a theme for my senior art exhibition (part of completing my BFA last year) I decided to use those civil defense maps that showed the rings of destruction from ground zero as inspiration. My entire show consisted of works (collage, drawing, painting, photography, mosaic) with concentric circles as the common shapes that moved from “Circles of Destructions” to the theme title “Circles of Construction.” Should you want to take a look, the catalog of the show is here:

http://www.codecooker.com/projects_visual_arts/index.php?f=image_catalog

 

[Sirius Glass]

Thanks for the link. It was a good read and the photos are starkly beautiful.

This topic is a personal one for me, being raised during that Cold War and, as a navy brat, always near the center of a potential nuclear blast. In fact, we never did the drills and hid under our desks because it was obvious that we were in the zone that would be largely vaporized.

Years later, in the early-1970s, I am in the US army and found myself stationed in Europe as a guard of a Nike-Herc missile site. Half of the rounds were nukes and I got up close and personal to them as part of my guard duties. I didn’t spend much time pondering their role in a conflict, instead, compartmentalizing that just like I did growing up near one ground zero after another. However, there was an anxiety that was established that I didn’t work through until a decade or so ago.

As a result of that, when I was considering a theme for my senior art exhibition (part of completing my BFA last year) I decided to use those civil defense maps that showed the rings of destruction from ground zero as inspiration. My entire show consisted of works (collage, drawing, painting, photography, mosaic) with concentric circles as the common shapes that moved from “Circles of Destructions” to the theme title “Circles of Construction.” Should you want to take a look, the catalog of the show is here:

http://www.codecooker.com/projects_visual_arts/index.php?f=image_catalog

I very rarely check out the member posted websites, but I made an exception today and enjoyed your art.

 

[warden]

Thanks for the link. It was a good read and the photos are starkly beautiful.

This topic is a personal one for me, being raised during that Cold War and, as a navy brat, always near the center of a potential nuclear blast. In fact, we never did the drills and hid under our desks because it was obvious that we were in the zone that would be largely vaporized.

Years later, in the early-1970s, I am in the US army and found myself stationed in Europe as a guard of a Nike-Herc missile site. Half of the rounds were nukes and I got up close and personal to them as part of my guard duties. I didn’t spend much time pondering their role in a conflict, instead, compartmentalizing that just like I did growing up near one ground zero after another. However, there was an anxiety that was established that I didn’t work through until a decade or so ago.

As a result of that, when I was considering a theme for my senior art exhibition (part of completing my BFA last year) I decided to use those civil defense maps that showed the rings of destruction from ground zero as inspiration. My entire show consisted of works (collage, drawing, painting, photography, mosaic) with concentric circles as the common shapes that moved from “Circles of Destructions” to the theme title “Circles of Construction.” Should you want to take a look, the catalog of the show is here:

http://www.codecooker.com/projects_visual_arts/index.php?f=image_catalog

Great work Vince!

 

[VinceInMT]

I very rarely check out the member posted websites, but I made an exception today and enjoyed your art.

Thanks.

 

[VinceInMT]

Great work Vince!

Thanks.

 

[Arthurwg]

Radiation from some of those blasts reached the east coast thanks to some errant winds, causing numerous thyroid cancers.

 

[BobD]

How did Gowin protect himself and his film from radiation?

 

[Sirius Glass]

Those photographs remind me of a Tom Lear song " These truths we hold self evident, all men may be cremated equally. ..."

 

[jtk]

I guess we'd have to agree on what old age means, but one notable example would be Harry Callahan, who photographed his wife Eleanor for more than forty years. Callahan was one of Gowin's professors at RISD.

I imagine Andre Kertesz would qualify as well but I don't have my books available to check. Elizabeth was a favorite subject for him though throughout his career.

I agree Edith Gowin was/is a great and capable model.

I've failed to find photos of Eleanor in old age, but she appears to have been beautiful and perhaps inspired as Callahan's model in her youth. But I do feel certain that you're right about this.